


The Request

by EspurrsVena



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, F/M, Mild Language, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-09-16 09:30:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16951458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EspurrsVena/pseuds/EspurrsVena
Summary: Robin is a huge fan of "The Shepherds" and wants to ask their singer Chrom if he could write down a part of her favourite lyrics for a tattoo. She wants to do this yet she also has doubts. Luckily her best friend Tharja helps her... in her own way.





	The Request

It was a foolish idea. She knew it. She had thought of at least 100 ways how he would react to her request and she was sure, it would be one of the 87 ones in which he would say no.  
“If you don't ask him, I'll do it. And this will be far more embarrassing for you.” Her best friend Tharja tried to help her in her own way.  
“But what if-”  
“Shut up, Robin. He will agree to do it.”  
“But-”  
“Stop the buts, seriously. Why should he say no? He wrote those lyrics and if I was the singer of The Shepherds I would feel honoured that someone wants to tattoo my lyrics in my handwriting on their body. And...” Tharja folded her arms in front of her chest, looking slightly amused. “If I was you, I would be more worried that his handwriting looks awful.”  
However this was the least of Robin's concern. Everything about Chrom was perfect. His lyrics, his band, his looks... His handwriting would be surely perfect, too. 

“Or that he makes a spelling mistake. As stupid as he is, this is very likely to happen.” Even through Tharja was also a Shepherds fan, she was far more critical of Chrom. He was a good singer in her opinion, but he was far too stupid and too much a dork for her taste.  
And Robin knew her best friend wasn't wrong with her assumption. Chrom was kind of a dork, yes, and he forgot his own lyrics on stage from time to time. However Robin was also prepared for this. “I have the lyrics on my phone. He only needs to copy them from there. So don't worry about mistakes.”  
“Prepared as always. But you think he can read? Wow. You do have high expectations of him.”  
“Tharja, he can read and write his own language perfectly fine. Its not like I wrote the lyrics in Plegian or Chonsinese.”  
“Yet that's all he can.” Again her best friend wasn't wrong. After the last Shepherds concert they attended she and Chrom chatted a bit about their private lifes and the singer was impressed that Robin was able to speak four languages while he shamefully admitted that he could only speak Ylissean and his grades in that subject weren't the best in school (which he blamed on poetry analysis).

“I'm more afraid that he won't agree to do that. I mean my only other tattoo is the Grima one and which Ylissean person wants to be on the same body as Grima? Especially when you have a Naga tattoo like him!”  
“Come on. We had that topic already yesterday. He had no problem with you being from Plegia. And I'm pretty sure that he noticed the Grima tattoo already a while ago. Yet he never mentioned it, so everything is fine.”  
“I´m sure he is just polite. I mean... We are his fans. We basically pay him to be nice to us.”  
“If he was just polite, you wouldn't have talked with him for nearly 15 minutes, By the way I'm still impressed that you managed to do that without dying.”  
Again Robin had to agree to her friend. She was also kinda proud of herself that she managed to have an actual talk with him. Normally she grew very quiet around Chrom yet that night she talked with him and didn't need Tharja to carry on the conversation. Maybe it happened cause he mentioned that he also didn't like Aversa. Even through he didn't mention her name, it was pretty clear that he meant her. Who else did whole tours and tried to buy the friendship of the band with expensive gifts? Of course, Robin (and Tharja) didn't mention that Aversa was Robin's stepsister and that she did those things cause she wanted to surpass Robin. If Robin attended two concerts of a tour, Aversa did at least three ones. If Robin prepared small gifts for the band, Aversa bought something which costed at least twice as much.  
Tharja always said that hating the same people brings people together and on that day Robin could agree to it for once.

“You can always blame your stupid dad for this and in a few years you will be able to remove or cover it.”  
Her father was a pretty important person in the Church of Grima and forced Robin to tattoo the symbol on her hand when she was 16 years old. His beloved older daughter Aversa had it on her back, yet according to her father Robin was the black sheep for “liking Ylissean shit too much”, so she needed to get it somewhere where it was always visible. Her father hoped that it would make Ylisseans avoid and shun her. The only good thing with resulted from that whole drama was that her mother finally left him. They moved to Ferox to start a new life where he couldn't find them and due the climate in her new home country it was possible to hide the tattoo under gloves for most of the year. However now she was living in Ylisse to attend the Southtown university. Luckily, she met Tharja and a few other Plegians who had enough from the Church of Grima there. Also, while fingerless gloves were an option in Ylissean spring or autumn, summers were a hard time for her...

“Earth to Robin. Chrom arrived.”  
His name was enough to bring Robin back to reality. He just got out of the van which was parked less than 10 meters from where the girls stood.  
“Go girl. You wanted to ask him before the show.” However Robin wasn't able to move. Her legs felt too heavy. “Seriously... How makes that guy the smartest person I know become dumb in a few seconds? That's why I don't like him. He ruins my best friend. His stupidity is contagious.” Robin's reaction to Chrom was another reason why her best friend wasn't too fond of him. “Go and ask him NOW.” Suddenly Robin was dragged by her friend to Chrom. “Hey Chrom. Robin wants to ask you something.” And with this there was no chance of escaping left.  
“Ah! My favourite Plegian girls! Nice to see you again.” He was in a good mood, yet this gave Robin only a small piece of confidence. “So, what's up? What do you want to ask?”  
She wanted to run away, but there was no way Tharja would let that happen. “So yes hi Chrom. I-I wa-wanted to ask you if you could write down a part of the lyrics from Don`t let me fade away..” She became more quiet towards the end of the sentence which made her sure that he didn't understand her.  
Yet he did. “Sure why?”  
“Iwanttotattoothemonmyback.” She managed to say, yet she was pretty sure that she would die in the next seconds.  
“Really? Wow I never expected you to be a tattoo person. Why this song?”  
“I-it`s a long story... but sometime ago I used to have amnesia and during this time the song fit pretty well so yeah...” She was glad that she said everything without sounding too stupid.  
“Oh Naga! Amnesia? Wow I'm glad that's over now. So you wanted a part of the lyrics? Which part?”

Because everything went too well until now, Robin's phone fell on the floor when she got it out of her coat pocket. It was embarrassing to pick it up in front of him, yet Naga, Grima or whoever was on her side today and the screen wasn't cracked. “So this part.” She showed him her notes and Tharja gave him the paper and the pen they had prepared for this moment.  
However before Chrom could start to copy the text, the band manager Frederick appeared. “I know you don't like it, but even singers are needed when we carry the stuff into the venue.”  
“Can't this wait for 5 minutes?”  
“No.”  
“Well, you heard him girls.” Chrom was clearly not happy about the situation. “Can you send me the lyrics via message? I doubt I'll have time to come out before the show but I promise to give it to you afterwards. Deal?”  
Thanks to Chromous big puppy eyes all Robin could do was nodding.

After a quick goodbye to Chrom and Frederick the girls went back to the place where they were waiting before the arrival of the band.  
“I acted like a complete idiot, didn't I?” Robin was disappointed by herself. She wanted to tell him how much that song meant to her, but she barely managed to tell him the basics.  
“Not more than usually. But hey what did I say? He agreed! So which scenario was it?”  
“Number 36-38. All of them were disturbed by Frederick.”  
“Wait... There is more than one scenario in which he appears?” Robin nodded. “You are crazy. So all three are still possible? Which one is the one with the positive end?”  
“The 36th one. In number 37 Frederick forbids it and in number 38 Chrom forgets to give it to me.”  
In this moment Tharja didn't want to mention that she thought that the 38th scenario was very likely to happen in her opinion yet she didn't want to crush the hopes of her best friend. “I won`t let them happen. You will get your tattoo so that you finally stop whining.”

On that day it was the first time that Robin wasn't able to enjoy a Shepherds show. She was still afraid that Chrom would forget the paper or that someone else could ruin everything. At least Aversa wasn't attending the show. She would have ruined everything for sure, yet to Robin's luck she was playing Daddy's little princess in Plegia right now. She wondered what her father would do if he found out that his favourite daughter was a fan of an Ylissean band. That could be surely funny.  
After the Shepherds finished their set, Chrom was the first one to leave the stage, most likely to avoid that he needs to help to bring everything back to the van. Robin received the bass pick from Vaike and Tharja a drumstick from Kellam. This resulted in some jealous looks from other fans cause they didn't catch them but the members came personally to give it to them.

Before the other band started with their set, the girls left the first row and went to the toilet. They needed to smell nicely when meeting with the members.  
“Nice a drumstick! I love it when they give us the stuff personally.” Tharja was in a good mood yet Robin didn't feel the same.  
“They surely did this cause they are sorry that I´m not getting this tattoo... I'm sure.”  
“Are you kidding me?” The urge to smack Robin's head against the wall was strong for Tharja. “Let us check at the merch. I'm sure your idiot is waiting there.”  
“I dunno if I can go there now.” Robin was feeling even more insecure than when she was telling him her request.  
“You can do this. I´ll drag you to him.” For the second time on this day her best friend dragged her to the singer. 

“Hey Robin. Hey Tharja, Did you enjoy the show?” The singer spotted them right away. Both girls nodded. “Great! Robin, I wrote the lyrics down for you. It's...” He started to look around the merch table yet there was nothing but the price list of the merch and the CDs. Also there was no paper under the table. “I swear it was here before the show!”  
Panic grew inside of Robin while Tharja was nothing but annoyed. However before the panic could kill Robin, Stahl, the guitarist, came with a paper in his hand. “Chrom, any reason why there was a paper with our lyrics was backstage?”  
“Ah there it is! You are the best. It's for Robin. She wants to have them as a tattoo.” Proudly Chrom handed the paper to Robin whose face resembled a tomato in this moment. Before she stored the paper in the safety of her bag, she checked it for spelling mistakes and luckily there were none. His handwriting wasn`t the cleanest but she would be able to live with it on her back.  
“Th-thank you very much.”  
“You really want to do this? Chrom`s handwriting on your body forever?” Stahl was surprised. He also knew that the girls were huge fans of their band yet he didn't expect this.  
“Stahl.. You are sounding like Lissa right now.” The singer sighed. “You know, I told my sister, Lissa, about it this afternoon and she couldn't believe that someone wants to have m handwriting tattooed. According to her it's too awful, but you know that's not true. So you have to do it or she will tease me forever. Help a big brother to defend his honour.” Jokingly Chrom held on tightly on Robins arm and acted desperate. However this let Robin forget all Ylissean she could speak so that all she could do was to nod again. And of course Chrom was no help. “That's my girl”, he declared and patted on her back. Finally he let her go cause some other fans wanted to buy something.

“Breathe Robin. You are turning blue.”  
At last Robin remembered that she needed to breathe and took a deep one. “Sorry.”  
“Don`t worry. He didn't notice anything. He is too stupid.” Because Chrom was still close Tharja said the last sentence in Plegian.  
“You could be nicer to him.”  
“And you could act less like a lovesick middle school girl.”  
“Is it that bad?”  
“Yes, but thanks to his stupidy he didn't notice anything.”  
“Tharja.. be nicer.”  
“No. Unless he stops making my best friend losing her breath.”

The other fans left the table so that the singer had time for the two friends. “So when do you want to make the tattoo?”  
Tharja`s secret Chrom bullying helped Robin to calm down a bit, so that she was able to talk again. “I hope I can do it soon. It depends how much money I receive for Tiki`s day.”  
“You celebrate it, too? I thought you only celebrate Grima`s Night in Plegia.”  
“In Plegia, yes. But my mom started to celebrate all Naga related holidays after we left Plegia. She is done with the Church of Grima.”  
“Then I hope you get a lot of money for Tiki`s day. You know that you have to save me from my sisters teasing.”  
“Don`t worry. You will be the first one who will see it.” She had planned to send him a picture already.  
“Nope not the first one. The tattoo artist and me will see it before you.”, corrected Tharja her.  
This made the singer laugh and his laughing made Robin melt a bit. His laughing was simply too beautiful. “Don`t worry. I'm fine with this. But I look forward to see it.”

Now after he declared that he supports her idea and having the model in her bag, Robin's fears had melted away. She knew she had worried too much before yet it was important for her and she wanted to be prepared for every possible reaction of him. She was glad that it was a positive one. This tattoo would be her real first tattoo and another step into a free life, a life without the shadow of her stupid father looming over her. “I also look forward to have it on my skin.”

**Author's Note:**

> Well, here is my first upload on AO3. This story is based on something which happened to myself and the story was a good way to sort out my thoughts.  
> The mentioned song "Don`t let me fade away" exists, but of course it`s not from the Shepherds. It`s from the band Wage War and you can check it out on YouTube.  
> I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
